U.S. Jobless Rate Hits 8.9%,

But Pace Eases

Another 539,000 jobs disappeared from the economy in April, and the unemployment rate jumped to 8.9 percent, its highest level in a quarter century, the Labor Department reported Friday. Yet the deterioration was milder than expected, prompting encouraging talk.

“The most intense spate of weakness is probably behind us,” said Michael T. Darda, chief economist at the research and trading firm MKM Partners. “Less bad is always a prelude to good. It’s going to take some time for this economy to get back on its feet, but we might be closer to the recession ending.”

Investors bought into that message, sending stock prices soaring.

A day after the Treasury pronounced American banks healthier than many analysts had anticipated, the jobs report presented the clearest evidence yet that the nation’s economic free fall appears to have been arrested. The acute shock that began last fall with the collapse of the prominent investment bank Lehman Brothers has largely passed. Panic is no longer the dominant motif of American commercial life.

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous